A slender elegant figure in cropped brown trousers and a gold T-shirt, Billie paused at the roadside to allow a car to drive past. She gave a weak smile when the car stopped and Damon Marios lowered the window to greet her. 'I was just about to call on you—'
'I'm going down to the beach.'
With a nod as if she had issued an invitation, Damon parked his car on the broad verge and got out to join her.
'I don't think that us being seen together is likely to do either of us any good,' Billie remarked, secretly squirming with the anxiety over her marriage, which was urging her to exercise a rare kind of extreme caution. But when Alexei was being seen out and about with Calisto, what was she worrying about?
Damon cupped her elbow to steady her as she stumbled on her descent of the sloping ground that led down to the beach. 'Well, don't worry on my behalf. I'm getting a divorce…'
Billie turned dismayed eyes on him. 'But I thought you and Ilona were back together again.'
Damon released a rueful laugh. 'Yes, we were, but only briefly. I'm afraid the reconciliation didn't work out. Two years ago, Ilona fell for a colleague at work and had an affair and now that she's finally prepared to come clean on that score with her family and mine, we are both free to move on.'
Taken aback by that frank explanation, Billie spun and rested a sympathetic hand on his sleeve. 'I had no idea, Damon…I'm truly sorry.'
'It's most sad for our daughters. They don't understand why their mother is now bringing another man into their lives,' Damon replied heavily as he reached for her hand and squeezed her fingers. 'Ilona and I tried really hard to make a go of our marriage for their sake but we failed.'
Billie squeezed his arm. 'How are your family taking it?'
Damon rolled his eyes and grimaced. 'Like it's the end of the world, like nobody ever got a divorce before; like Ilona has suddenly become the most wicked woman on Speros.'
'I thought that was me!'
'Your husband's reputation goes before him. Everyone suspects Alexei of double-dealing.'
'In this case they would be wrong.'
'But not if the rumour that your aunt's child is in fact yours is actually true,' Damon chipped in, curious dark eyes settling on her flushed face.
'That is true,' Billie confirmed, since she had insisted that that deception was dropped the day after her wedding when she travelled back to the island alone. She could see that Damon was dying to ask who Nicky's father was and that only good manners were restraining him, but she dropped the subject. She had no intention of sharing her innermost secrets with the son of one of the biggest gossips in the village